 "Watch: Macron smacked by wife Brigitte in Vietnam? French president says ‘just joking’ as video goes viral")
A video of French President Emmanuel Macron’s arrival in Vietnam, in which his wife, Brigitte Macron, seems to hit him in the face just as he steps off the plane, has gone viral on social media.
❗️ Macron's wife viciously SMACKS him in face pic.twitter.com/2zSalRFYLu
— RT (@RT_com) May 26, 2025
The French President’s office on Monday played down an incident involving Brigitte Macron, who appeared to push aside Emmanuel Macron’s face as he arrived in Vietnam to kick off his Southeast Asia tour.
The Associated Press news agency captured footage in Hanoi on Sunday evening of Macron’s jet door opening to reveal him.
His wife Brigitte emerges from the left side of the open doorway, placing both hands on her husband’s face and pushing it.
The president seems shocked, but quickly recovers and turns to wave through the open door. She is obscured by the aeroplane fuselage, making it hard to discern her facial expressions or body language.
The couple proceed down the staircase for the official welcome by Vietnamese officials, though Brigitte Macron does not take her husband’s offered arm.
The video clip circulated rapidly online, promoted particularly by accounts that are habitually hostile to the French leader.
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View AllMacron’s office initially denied the authenticity of the images, before they were confirmed as genuine.
A close associate of the president later described the incident as a couple’s harmless “squabble”.
Macron denied Monday any “domestic dispute” with his wife Brigitte after a video appeared to show her shoving his face away as they arrived in Vietnam for a diplomatic visit.
They were “joking as we often do”, he told reporters in Hanoi, adding that other videos had been misinterpreted as showing him sharing a bag of cocaine or confronting the Turkish president. “None of these are true,” he said, and “everyone needs to calm down”.
Another member of his entourage played down the significance of the incident.
“It was a moment when the president and his wife were decompressing one last time before the start of the trip by joking around,” the second source told reporters.
“It’s a moment of togetherness. No more was needed to feed the mills of the conspiracy theorists,” the source added, blaming pro-Russian accounts for negative comments about the incident.
Vietnam is the first stop on an almost week-long tour of Southeast Asia for Macron where he will pitch France as a reliable alternative to the United States and China.
He will also visit Indonesia and Singapore.
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